|
I'm from a town right next to Berkeley, California (one of the most liberal parts of America). I used to be opposed to guns and felt much better educated than all the gun-owning rednecks thanks to Michael Moore's fantastic piece of journalistic work on bowling and, more prominently, firearms. I'm glad I started paintballing or else I wouldn't have seen how wrong I was.
There used to be a paintball field nearby. It was close and I didn't have to pay bridge tolls, the price was better than most other places around. They had lights for their indoor and outdoor fields which was great during the night or rain. The turf was a bit slippery but I still had a great time. This was when I was in love with paintball, doing it every Sunday and yearning to get serious with a team and play tourneys.
Fast forward two years. Every Sunday I'm there (rain or shine), I've made countless friends, competed with and stood my ground against local and D2 teams. I got my first nickname. The employees were my family. Before I knew it I was on the field team. I was one of the regular guys that would hang out behind the counter and use their tools, their intercom, their bathrooms, grab waters out of their fridge. They started doing gear giveaways, raffles, and free jersey days. They even had a 3 man tourny with a 1st place prize of 2 grand. I got great deals on paint and admission. (60 bucks for two cases). Business was great, they even decided to convert one of their storage areas into an awesome CQB airsoft field complete with an indoor office and a mock nuke. **** was good. I even played a PSP event.
We talked about a broad range of topics that men of that age would talk about (pussy, drinking, weed, paintball, etc.) I was a bit unnerved to hear them talk about guns. This upset me a bit, I hadn't been around firearms at all, especially not on a positive conversational level. This was back when I thought things like "what the hell is an AR 15? Hey wait, I've played counterstrike and thats definitely an M4, not an AR 15. I should correct them. Air's full, screw it"
After a while I found out that the field manager lived in Nevada and drove down 4 hours every weekend to manage the field, he also owned quite a plethora of guns. The owner's son actually quit paintball (after being on a D2 team) so he could go to the range more. Even the guys with medical marijuana cards were avid shooters.
It wasn't all titties and donuts though. One guy got 16 stitches to the head after he and another guy collided the next day. He came down before the day ended and showed us his stitches. In the horseshoe shape with approximately a .68" diameter.
Then it closed. I didn't find out why until about a month after.
Here's what happened:
The airsoft field they had opened wasn't working too well. The rental guns always went down (Classic Army) and there were a lot of arguments about people playing on after being hit. There was a group of Samoans who were accused many times of playing on. They were confronted by the employees, told to play fairly, and then allowed to play. The employees thought the complaints would stop. They didn't and they came from various people. The Samoans were kicked out and rightfully so.
TL;DR
For some reason the Samoans thought this was unfair and came back with baseball bats as the place was closing up. There were still customers there and the Samoans did not stop in the parking lot and proceeded to threaten both the customers and employees. They called the cops who have maybe a 6 minute response time. Normally this would end disastrously. Customers would've been hurt, a fight would've broken out (Samoans are big, and even more intimidating with baseball bats), tons of property would've been damaged.
Luckily the owner's son drew his handgun out of his bag, on his business, his father's property, while another went inside to grab their gun. No one got hurt.
At first I was uncomfortable with the fact that I'd been spending a good portion of my life at a place where they keep weapons and ammunition ready to be fired. Then I realized that I trusted these people like I trust my family. I trust them to stop the game when I get a barrel to the head and bleed profusely, I trust them to call 911 when they see that a serious injury has occurred, I trust them to give first aid until the EMTs arrive. Why can't I trust them to defend me?
But what if these Samoan dickheads were smart and they tried to get one of them as they were walking home from work? Or as they're leaving their house? They should still be able to defend themselves.
You want case studies? Compare the shootings at Virginia tech and the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy. See which had a higher death count and in which one students used a handgun to stop the crazed foreign shooter. How about the 38 states (I think its 40 now) states that have right to carry legislation. Is their diminishing crime rate a coincidence? In all 38 of them?
edit- damn, I wrote more than I expected
__________________
"I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up to the weight"- Malcom X
Last edited by sNoW PIrAnHa : August 14th at 03:24 PM.
|
For those of you who wish to argue...
